


Geas In The Abstract

by WillOTheWhisk



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abstract, Hurt/Comfort, I have no clue what this is honestly, M/M, Mirrors, Restlessness, Stream of Consciousness, being an artist is frustrating, critical role fanfiction is my life now, dissociation? Or something kind of similar?, midnight in scanlan's mansion, mild touch-starved percy, oops i broke percy, percy needs a hug, whoops i didnt edit this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 18:49:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9839057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillOTheWhisk/pseuds/WillOTheWhisk
Summary: Geas5th level enchantmentCasting Time: 1 minuteRange: 60 feetComponents: VDuration: 30 daysYou place a magical command on a creature that you can see within range, forcing it to carry out some service or refrain from some action or course of activity as you decide. If the creature can understand you, it must succeed on a wisdom saving throw or become charmed by you for the duration. While the creature is charmed by you, it takes 5d10 psychic damage each time it acts in a manner directly counter to your instructions but no more than once each day. A creature that can’t understand you is unaffected by the spell.You can issue any command you choose, short of an activity that would result in certain death. Should you issue a suicidal command, the spell ends.You can remove the spell early by using  an action to dismiss it. A remove curse, greater restoration, or wish spell also ends it.When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 7th or 8th level, the duration is 1 year. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 9th level, the spell lasts until it is ended by one of the spells mentioned above.(5e Player’s Handbook, 244-245 2014 Wizards of The Coast)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve given up on writing Percy and have now just shoved my current thoughts into him because my smol sad child fits them so well.  
> Currently ignoring the events of episode 85 because I’m not quite ready to accept that yet. It only matters to the small detail of this fic, but hey.  
> So when I came across this spell, something about it really stuck with me, in an abstract creative sense. So I wrote some stuff on it. Some of this is probably some form of dissociation, other bits maybe not quite. I'm really not sure.  
> "I have been given a Geas, but not told what it is."

Percy drummed his fingers across his thigh with increasing rapidity and force, the insistent rhythm never quite enough to drive out the clinging restlessness that had settled into the back of his mind, tugging at his focus, setting him adrift. He needed to do something. His hands itched with a need to create something, to hammer a pattern out of metal that could make him feel anything other than this numbing emptiness.

The mansion had settled long ago, everyone off to their place for the night. The joking and laughter that filled the halls, the comforting presence of home, had stilled and vanished. Percy was left alone in his room, the dimly lit space so familiar in such an unnerving way, he stared at the ceiling and it all felt wrong and he grasped at gossamer bits of thought as they danced just out of reach, slipping through his clumsy hold, teasing him with their closeness, and maybe if he just managed to latch on, everything would make sense, come into clarity, this swirling mess would force itself into some sort of order. He chased them down shifting paths and was so incredibly close but as he followed after them, he slipped further and further from reality, and was this really him? Was this place really his? Was there anyone else in the mansion at all, or was it just him, ghosting through the place without form, just an abstract?

He shook his head, trying to pull himself back to the world, and he was sure that if he looked down at his hands they would be shifting smoke.

He thought he should get up. Swing his legs out of his bed and stand and walk...somewhere… and shouldn’t thinking about it make it happen? He wanted to get up. He was thinking about getting up. How did he make his legs actually move?

He started drifting again, chasing a shard of colour, a tiny piece of something that could be inspiration. No. He snapped back, and finally, finally, and why did it feel like it had been an eternity, made his body listen to his commands, and then it was moving and he didn’t quite know where and he wondered if he could summon the willpower to stop again, now he had started.

His footsteps thudded softly through the halls, the sound muffled, distant. Before he knew it, he stood at the end of the hall, and there was a large mirror here, just before the turn for the stairs. It was large, and ornate, and he never really paid it much mind. Scanlan liked to look at himself, that was well known. But now he couldn’t quite tear his eyes away because there was this man gazing back at him and that couldn’t be him, could it? The familiarity felt so incredibly unfamiliar, because he should recognize himself, shouldn’t he? But that couldn’t be him, because it was so solid, there was form to it and he knew that he was fuzzy around the edges.

Its face was so blank, and that couldn’t be right, because there was no way that with all of the spinning smoke and gears grinding and breaking against each other in his head couldn’t be seen in his eyes, there was an unreality to the way the face in the mirror did not tilt and shift and warp.

But it blinked as he did, it’s eye movements copied his own, and now he was suddenly angry because how dare this thing pretend to know him, think it could reflect him and _Percy it’s just a mirror_ he wanted to punch it, could imagine himself reaching up, winding up, slamming his fist against the surface, could feel the way it would splinter against his knuckles, but his hand remained limp and unclenched at his side.

He tore his eyes from the false creature in the mirror, was moving again before he knew it, going downstairs, and this time his steps took him to his workshop.

Why was he here.

He couldn’t create anything, not when he was drifting like this, nothing he made would be quite right and he knew that but still he stepped up to his workbench and gripped a set of tools like a lifeline, picked up a few wires and put them down again, started drumming his fingers across the table. That desperate restlessness was building again, he needed to make something and it needed to be good but he knew just looking at the pieces on his table that nothing he made would fit what he needed, nothing would slow the way he was being erased at the edges, nothing would express exactly what he wanted to say, because he couldn’t even pin it down in abstract thought, much less the his own imperfect art.

He twirled a wire around his finger, unraveled it, twirled it again, and maybe if he just started working, something would emerge, he would end up somewhere. But you can’t get anywhere from void, he knew that, there was no fuel left to propel him anywhere, he would only sink further into restlessness. Percy twirled and bent the wire, and nothing emerged. His actions became more violent as he slipped from restlessness into frustration, until he felt the urge to throw the wire across the room, launch his pliars at the door, tear his hair from its roots. He needed to do something, there was a piece of existence hovering on the edge of his thoughts, elusive and gossamer, and he wanted to grab it before it went away. It wasn’t going away, but he still could not latch onto it, pull it out of anything but fuzzy abstract. He wanted it to go away.

He started humming. Music was good for driving out drifting bits of thought, or at least making them shut up. He barely got through the first line before he stopped, the urge to throw something coming back. The sound drove into his skull and it was so annoying and what the hell, because music shouldn’t do that. Music was calming, settling, distracting. It shouldn’t do that.

He turned back to his work, stared at it, turning it around in his hands for a moment, before hurling it with all of his might against the wall. The tiny, light piece made little noise as it fell to the ground, but the force behind his swing had been oh so satisfying, driven out a little bit of the smoke and cold. He could feel the small bit of strain in his shoulder, and for a moment the world felt in focus. He basked in the feeling for a moment, but it faded all too quickly, and he was left wondering if the action had ever happened at all. The piece of wire was across the room, but he felt fuzzy and heavy and numb again, as though he had never moved at all. He tried to remember the action of throwing the wire. The memory danced out of his reach. Felt fake, made up.

He seized a pair of pliers from the bench and threw them at the wall with all the force he could. They made a much louder noise, metal clanging against stone, then hitting the floor with a heavy thud. That was grounding, too, the lingering memory of the sound ringing through his ears, and he was real again so why did he suddenly want to cry?

As he tumbled back into the abstract, he had a powerful urge to be on the ceiling. It didn’t make any sense, and he almost started laughing, it was so sudden and ridiculous. He could, he realized. He had those boots, and he was perfectly capable of climbing up to perch on the ceiling. He didn’t know why, but it felt like everything would be okay, if only he were hanging from the ceiling.

He clambered up. And wow, this was surreal. He started laughing, uncontrollably, a stuttering, shrieking sort of laughter that was almost crying, and wow, this really wasn’t funny anymore, and he should really stop laughing, this wasn’t laughing anymore, just noise, but he couldn’t stop.

“Percy?”

Vax’s voice was hesitant, confusion and concern evident, and Percy’s laughter turned to a strangled chuckle as he turned to face him, dropping from the ceiling, landing heavily and stumbling into his desk and oh that stung that was wonderful.

“Vax! Hello! Did you know, that we don’t exist?” Percy dug his fingers into his side where he had hit the desk in a desperate attempt to keep that fleeting feeling of existence, but it faded, and he started up a pulsing mantra, I do not exist, I do not exist, I do not exist, I do not exist.

Vax’s eyebrows narrowed, stepping towards Percy. “Percival, are you alright? What do you mean we don’t exist?”

“Isn’t it funny, Vax? All of this is fake and none of it matters and we are all going to blur around the edges until we lose all meaning, until we are consumed by smoke and abstraction.” I do not exIST, I do NOT exIST, I do NOT exIST.

Vax took the last few steps to stand directly in front of Percy, trying to force eye contact, but Percy’s eyes were staring right past him into who knows where.

He took Percy’s hand, and Percy jolted backwards at the touch, because he shouldn’t have been able to feel that, that wasn’t his hand, he wasn’t real I Do noT exISt

“Percy, when was the last time you slept?”

I Do noT exISt I Do noT exISt the words blended together and lost all meaning, just another abstraction. His fingers twitched in agitation, there was something he was missing and he was spiraling downwards and everything was running together idonotexistidonotexistidonotexistidonotdonotdonotidonot he was going to scream.

“Percy. Percival. Look at me.”

Vax’s voice was forceful and his tone felt like a punch in the gut and he really did not feel like dealing with this right now and wow it was so freeing to realize that he didn’t have to.

Vax reached out and gripped his shoulders. Percy tensed, trying to squirm backwards, but Vax’s hands were iron and Percy was far less slippery than the half-elf.

“Hey. Hey. Percival.” Vax’s voice was ridiculously level and warm. “Percy. You’re in your workshop, in Scanlan’s mansion. You’re here. I’m here. We’re both real.” He tightened his grip on Percy’s shoulders. “It’s late, almost morning. You exist.”

As Vax spoke, a tiny bit of the tension in Percy’s body drained away, his spinning thoughts slowed, focused on the vice grip the pair of hands had on his shoulders, the even, rhythmic tone, so incredibly warm and real. His mantra stuttered to a halt, interrupted by the pure existence of Vax, the solidness of him, the lack of an abstract.

He blinked, slowly, and his eyes focused on the form in front of him, and the wave of adrenaline that had been keeping him up dropped away, exhaustion spilling in to fill the vacuum that it left. Vax’s grip on his shoulders never lessened, didn’t fade to unreliable memory, it was there and he was real. The last of the tension drained away, and he all but collapsed against Vax.

Vax caught him, sort of. Not quite strong enough to hold up the larger man, he eased the pair of them to the floor, propping Percy against the wall and sitting next to him, pressing their shoulders together.

Percy leaned against Vax, clinging desperately to the realness of him, scared that it would slip away again. Exhaustion pulsed through him again, and he buried his head in Vax’s side, and he was crying suddenly, choking quiet sobs.

Vax ran a hand gently through his hair, fingers gently brushing his scalp. “Hey. Okay. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You’re safe. You’re real.”

Percy took a shuddering breath, clinging to Vax’s side. “I’m so tired.” He rasped, and he started flitting off into the abstract again, forcing himself back at the pressure of Vax’s fingers on his scalp.

“I know. I know, dear. When was the last time you got a proper sleep?”

“I’m not sure.” A bit of hysteria crept back into his voice. “I honestly can’t remember.”

“Hey. That’s okay. There’s been a lot going on. But it’s over now. You’re safe. You’re allowed to rest. Here, c’mon.” Vax pulled Percy gently to his feet. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Percy followed Vax up the stairs, gripping his hand like he would disappear if he let go, and some part of him thought that he just might. He stumbled on a few of the stairs, and Vax paused patiently, helping him regain his balance.

Percy didn’t look at the mirror as they passed it, scared of what he might see. He kept his eyes trained on Vax, let some of his realness seep into himself.

They reached his room, and with Vax standing inside it, it didn’t feel quite as much like the stage for a play, a dollhouse, a flickering memory. Nothing fake could contain something with as much existance as Vax.

Sleep was abstract. Sleep was terrifying, because it meant the abstract might set in and never leave, or maybe even worse, drift away unattainably in waking. Percy did not want to sleep.

“I’ll be here when you wake up.” Vax promised.

Percy let sleep take him.

**Author's Note:**

> So around the point where Percy actually went to hang out on the ceiling is where he spirals past a point that I ever have. Mostly because I am unable to actually hang out on the ceiling. I'm not sure what would happen if I could, so I just went with what worked from there.  
> My poor smol child needs so many hugs.
> 
> Comments bring me life. Please tell me what you thought!


End file.
